ELGAR Falstaff. Froissart
Fine performances and production – another supreme Elgar bargain
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Edward Elgar
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Apex
Magazine Review Date: 8/2005
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 2564 62200-2
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Falstaff |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Andrew Davis, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer |
Romance |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Andrew Davis, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer Graham Sheen, Bassoon |
Grania and Diarmid, Movement: Incidental Music |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Andrew Davis, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer |
Grania and Diarmid, Movement: Funeral March |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Andrew Davis, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer |
Froissart |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Andrew Davis, Conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer |
Author: Andrew Achenbach
As digital Falstaffs go, Sir Andrew Davis’s all-too-swiftly deleted 1995 account with the BBC SO remains arguably the front-runner. If both Elgar himself and Barbirolli impart the greater vulnerability and compassion to the illimitably moving closing pages, the irresistible symphonic current coursing through Davis’s meticulously observant conception provides ample compensation. The orchestral playing is splendid, the recording glowingly realistic (the experienced Keener/Faulkner production team working in one of their favourite haunts, St Augustine’s in Kilburn). The couplings are memorable, too. In Froissart Davis achieves an acutely perceptive balance between thrusting chivalry and wistful introspection (how tenderly he moulds Elgar’s lyrical secondary material). The Romance for bassoon and orchestra comes off beautifully, as does the Funeral March from Grania and Diarmid (surely one of Elgar’s noblest utterances). At its new, ludicrously low price, not to be missed.
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